William McKinley Biography
The following biography
is from
Wikipedia.org
The
Free Encyclopedia.
William McKinley (January 29, 1843
September 14, 1901) was the 25th President of the United States. He was
elected twice, in 1896 and 1900, but was assassinated in 1901 at the
Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He fought the
Spanish-American War to liberate Cuba, and afterwards annexed the
Philippines and Puerto Rico, as well as Hawaii. He promoted high tariffs
as a formula for prosperity, helped rebuild the Republican party in 1896
by introducing new campaign techniques, and presided over a return to
prosperity after the Panic of 1893. He was succeeded by his Vice
President, Theodore Roosevelt.
Born in Niles, Ohio on Sunday January 29,
1843, William McKinley was the seventh of nine children. His parents,
William and Nancy (Allison) McKinley were of Scots-Irish ancestry. He
graduated from Poland Academy and briefly attended Allegheny College.
In June 1861, at the start of the American
Civil War, he enlisted in the Union Army, as a private in the
Twenty-third Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The regiment was sent to
western Virginia where it spent a year fighting small Confederate units.
His superior officer, another future U.S. President, Rutherford B.
Hayes, promoted McKinley to commissary sergeant for his bravery in
battle. For driving a mule team delivering rations under enemy fire at
Antietam he was promoted to second lieutenant by Hayes. This pattern
repeated several times during the war, and McKinley eventually mustered
out as Captain and brevet Major of the same regiment in September 1865.
On the third of June 1891, William McKinley
was initiated to Sigma Alpha Epsilon by the Ohio Theta chapter. Ohio
Theta was also establisheed at the Chittenden Hotel on this date. The
brothers of the Ohio State Association of Sigma Alpha Epsilon threw an
impromptu banquet for Mr. McKinley for he had to preside over the
Republican National Convention.
****
Legal and early political career
Following the war, McKinley attended Albany
Law School in Albany, New York, being admitted to the bar in 1867. He
commenced practice in Canton, Ohio. He was prosecuting attorney of Stark
County, Ohio, from 1869 to 1871, and was elected as a Republican to the
Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, and Forty-seventh U.S. Congress (1877-1883).
He was chairman of the Committee on Revision of the Laws (Forty-seventh
Congress). He presented his credentials as a Member-elect to the
Forty-eighth Congress and served from March 4, 1883 until May 27, 1884,
when he was succeeded by Jonathan H. Wallace, who successfully contested
his election. McKinley was again elected to the Forty-ninth, Fiftieth,
and Fifty-first Congresses (March 4, 1885 March 3, 1891). He was
chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means (Fifty-first Congress). In
1890, he authored the McKinley Tariff, which hurt his party in the
off-year elections of 1890, in which he lost his seat. McKinley was
elected Governor of Ohio in 1891, and re-elected in 1893, serving until
January 13, 1896.
Presidency 1897-1901
Policy
William McKinley defeated William Jennings
Bryan in the U.S. Presidential election of 1896, in what is considered
the forerunner of modern political campaigning. Republican strategist
Mark Hanna raised an unprecedented sum for the campaign and made
extensive use of the media in managing the McKinley victory. McKinley
promised that he would promote industry and banking and guarantee
prosperity for every group in a pluralistic nation. The Democratic
cartoon ridicules the promise saying it will rock the boat.
McKinley led the country into the
Spanish-American War, bringing the former colonies of Spain in the
Pacific (Guam and the Philippines) and the Caribbean Sea (Cuba and
Puerto Rico) under American control. In addition, the territories of
Hawaii and Wake Island were annexed during his first term. Despite some
vocal domestic opposition, his administration ushered the U.S. into the
"New Imperialism" of the era.
He was re-elected in 1900, defeating the
Democratic candidate, Bryan, by an even larger margin.
Significant events during presidency
Dingley Tariff (1897)
Maximum Freight Case (1897)
Spanish-American War (1898)
Gold Standard Act (1900)
Administration and Cabinet
OFFICE NAME TERM
President William McKinley 18961901
Vice President Garret A. Hobart 18961899
Theodore Roosevelt 1901
Secretary of State John Sherman 18971898
William R. Day 1898
John Hay 18981901
Secretary of the Treasury Lyman J. Gage
18971901
Secretary of War Russell A. Alger 18971899
Elihu Root 18991901
Attorney General Joseph McKenna 18971898
John W. Griggs 18981901
Philander C. Knox 1901
Postmaster General James A. Gary 18971898
Charles E. Smith 18981901
Secretary of the Navy John D. Long
18971901
Secretary of the Interior Cornelius N.
Bliss 18971899
Ethan A. Hitchcock 18991901
Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson
18971901
Supreme Court appointments
McKinley appointed the following Justices
to the Supreme Court of the United States:
Joseph McKenna - 1898
States admitted to the union
none
Assassination
McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz, an
anarchist, on September 6, 1901, while attending the Pan-American
Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Aged 58, he died of blood poisoning
from his infected wounds, on September 14, 1901. It has been posited
that had the surgical treatment he received been better and cleaner he
might have survived his injuries.
He was the third U.S. president to be
assassinated. His body was interred in the McKinley Memorial Mausoleum
adjacent to West Lawn Cemetery in Canton, Ohio. President Theodore
Roosevelt, Ohio Governor Andrew L. Harris, and other speakers saluted
the fallen President at the McKinley Memorial.
Trivia
McKinley's portrait appeared on the U.S.
$500 bill from 1928 to 1946.
McKinley had a pet parrot named 'Washington
Post'.
At his inauguration, the only item of
jewelry McKinley wore was his Sigma Alpha Epsilon badge.
McKinley was the first president to use the
telephone for campaign purposes.
McKinley was the first president to ride in
an automobile (the electric ambulance that took him to the hospital
after he was shot).
Disputed quotation
In 1903 after McKinley died an elderly
supporter named James F. Rusling recalled that in 1899 McKinley had said
to a religious delegation:
"Hold a moment longer! Not quite yet,
gentlemen! Before you go I would like to say just a word about the
Philippine business.... The truth is I didn't want the Philippines, and
when they came to us as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do
with them.... I sought counsel from all sides - Democrats as well as
Republicans - but got little help. I thought first we would take only
Manila; then Luzon; then other islands, perhaps, also. I walked the
floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not
ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed
Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night." "And one night
late it came to me this way - I don't know how it was, but it came: (1)
That we could not give them back to Spain - that would be cowardly and
dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany
- our commercial rivals in the Orient - that would be bad business and
discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves - they
were unfit for self-government - and they would soon have anarchy and
misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and (4) that there was
nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the
Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's
grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom
Christ also died. And then I went to bed and went to sleep and slept
soundly."
The question is whether McKinley said any
such thing as is bold-faced in point #4, especially regarding
"Christianize" the natives, or whether Rusling added it. McKinley was a
religious person but never said God told him to do anything. McKinley
never used the term Christianize (and indeed it was rare in 1898).
McKinley operated a highly effective publicity bureau in the White House
and he gave hundreds of interviews to reporters, and hundreds of public
speeches to promote his Philippines policy. Yet no authentic speech or
newspaper report contains anything like the purported words or
sentiment. The man who remembered it -- a Civil War veteran--had written
a book on the war that was full of exaggeration. The supposed highly
specific quote from memory years after the event is unlikely
enough--especially when the quote uses words like "Christianize" that
were never used by McKinley. Conclusion of historians such as Lewis
Gould: it is remotely possible but highly unlikely McKinley said the
last part. For a discussion of this question, see Gould 1980, pp.
140-142.
Monuments and memorials
McKinley Memorial, Niles, Ohio,
commemorates McKinley's Birthplace
McKinley Monument, Buffalo, New York
McKinley Statue, Adams, Massachusetts
McKinley County, New Mexico is named in his
honor.
Mount McKinley, Alaska is named after him.
McKinley Statue, Arcata, California
McKinleyville, California
McKinley Statue, Walden, New York
McKinley Monument, Antietam Battlefield,
Maryland
****
The
above biography has been copied in part or in whole
from an article on
Wikipedia.org
"The Free Encyclopedia." It has been modified under
the NGU Free Document License Section 5 in the
following manner: (1) All links within the article
have been removed, including text links such as
"[#]"; (2) The "[Edit]" text and link have been
removed [if you would like to update the article,
you may do so from the original page]; (3) the table
of Contents links and text have been removed; and
(4) all of the sections of the original article have
not been copied. All of the above text is available
under the terms of the GNU Free Document License.
URL of Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mckinley
Date Article Copied:
March 17, 2006
We
will try to replace this article with an original
biography in the near future, but we hope this will
be of help to our visitors in the mean time.
For
additions & corrections,
Click Here |